From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia.
Ensembl is a
bioinformatics research project
aiming to "develop a software
system which produces and
maintains automatic annotation on
selected eukaryotic genomes." (http://www.ensembl.org).
It is run in a collaboration
between the
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
and the
European Bioinformatics Institute
(EBI),
an outstation of the
European Molecular Biology
Laboratory (EMBL).
All data and all software that is
produced in the project can be
freely accessed and used.
Most of the software produced
and used is written in the
language
Perl and is based on the
BioPerl infrastructure. The
Perl
API can be easily employed in
other genomic projects e.g. for
the annotation of gene or clone
lists. Also avilable is an API in
Java.
The annotated
genomes include most finnished
vertebrates and selected
model organisms, currently
this includes:
- Chordates
- Mammals: Human, Mouse,
Rat, Chimp, Dog, Cow, Opossum
(preliminary data)
- Birds: Chicken
- Fish: Takifugu rubripes (Fugu),
Tetradodon nigroviridis, Danio
rerio (Zebrafish)
- Frog: Xenopus tropicalis
- Ancient relatives: Ciona
intestinalis
- Invertebrates
- Insects: Anopheles gambiae
(Mosqito), Honeybee,
Drosophila melanogaster (Fruitfly)
- Worm: Caenorhabditis
elegans
- Yeast: Saccharomyces
cerevisiae (Baker's yeast)
The service is used by
molecular biologists and
bioinforamticians around the
world to compare local data with a
common repository of current
knowlege on genes and theoretical
predictions of coding or
controlling elements on the
genomes of the above listed
organisms. The comparison of
organisms (comparative
genomics or also intergenomics)
with respect to their genomic
structures and the coded proteins
is of special interest and it
supports
Darwin's theories very much.
Please inspect the
synteny view, it makes also
very good educational material for
school classes. Ensembl is one of
the finest pieces of
Bioinformatics yet developed.
